


A Song of Siblings

by ariel2me



Series: Drabble/Ficlet Collection [30]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 15,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25519036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: A collection of drabbles and ficlets about siblings in ASOIAF.Chapter 31: Dacey Mormont & Alysane Mormont, promise
Series: Drabble/Ficlet Collection [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/107843
Comments: 136
Kudos: 243





	1. Elia & Oberyn, anger

**Elia Martell & Oberyn Martell, anger**

It was the unspoken rebuke in her eyes he minded the most. _How could you?_ her eyes were saying. _How could you, Oberyn? I expected better from you._

“You should have taken more care,” Elia said, with a great deal of asperity. “You should have minded the costs and the consequences, to yourself and to others.”

“I did not think it would –“

“You were not thinking at all, at least not with your head, that is the problem.”

 _This_ , her anger, he could bear so much better than her disappointment. When roused to anger, Elia was _magnificent_ , like the hottest, deepest core of the sun on the warmest day of the year. Her disappointment, on the other hand, came with a heavy dose of melancholy, and there was already far too much melancholy in his sister’s life, thought Oberyn.

“Doran tells me that I must remain in Oldtown for a time, showing my sincere repentance as a humble novice of the Citadel, until the Yronwoods’ anger is spent and their pride is appeased.”

“Is that their price to forgo a rebellion, that you must don a maester’s chain and serve House Yronwood?” Elia asked. 

“No, even the Yronwoods dare not go that far, sister. I need not swear the oath to serve, when I am done learning. Do not think of it as _exile_. It will be an adventure, a _grand_ adventure.”

“You have had more than your fair share of adventures lately, I would have thought. How many more duels do you wish to fight, pray tell? Will you bed Lord Hightower’s paramour too, while you are busy _repenting_ in Oldtown?”

Elia’s tongue could be as sharp as his own, even sharper than their mother’s at times, when she chose to deploy it in that manner, which happened very rarely. This was one of those rare occasions. Oberyn could not hide his smile. Elia frowned, seeing that smile. “This is no laughing matter,” she admonished him.

“I am smiling, not laughing.”

“You are incorrigible!”

“And yet … so very charming.”

Elia sighed. “What are we to do with you, Oberyn? Mother, Doran, myself … we have run out of remedies.” After a pause, she added, more softly this time, “What will I do without you?”


	2. Axell & Alester, envy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Axell Florent & Alester Florent, envy**

_Pray remind our niece that –_

Axell huffed. The letter from his brother had raised his ire, as always. Did Alester think it was so easy, to command their niece to do their bidding? Poor little orphan girl Selyse was now the Lady of Dragonstone and the king’s good-sister besides, as proud and prickly a mistress of the castle as any. Prouder and pricklier, Axell deemed, as it often happened when a disregarded nobody suddenly assumed a worthy position in life. How the worm had turned! It was no use reminding Selyse that had she _not_ been born the niece of Lord Florent of Brightwater Keep, she would never be where she was today.

_As the castellan of Dragonstone, you must have some influence on its lord. Pray remind Lord Stannis to bring his influence to bear on his brother the king, in the matter of our recent dispute with Highgarden._

Remind! As if Alester himself would dare to remind Stannis Baratheon about anything. He relied on his younger brother to do the dirty work for him. No word of gratitude would ever be forthcoming, of course, let alone any reward. Alester saw it as no more than Axell’s duty to do his bidding. 

“Why did the gods inflict me with brothers?” Stannis would whine and grumble, when one or both of his brothers displeased him in some way, which was almost _all_ the time. As if _he_ was the only one inflicted with brothers, Axell scoffed. As if no other man in this world ever had to contend with troublesome brothers other than Stannis Baratheon. 

Axell never said this out loud to Stannis, of course. He knew well enough what a younger son must and must not do, to get on in this world. 

But oh, how it rankled! He envied his older brother many things in life, too many to count, but since he became the castellan of Dragonstone, foremost among his envies was this: Alester did not have to spend his time minding his tongue and currying favor with their niece’s husband. Axell even had to stomach showing courtesy to that _vile_ smuggler who came from nothing and nowhere, knowing that Davos Seaworth enjoyed the favor and the trust of Stannis Baratheon. 

Alester had the whole of Brightwater Keep to rule, while Axell was stuck on this gloomy island with its grim and dour lord. Stannis was absent most of the time, true enough, but his grim and dour letters from King’s Landing with the long list of instructions arrived with the regularity lacking in his bowel movements. 

A good shit might mellow Stannis. A good shit, or the realization that his predicament was not so unique after all. 

_You are not the only younger son in the world,_ Axell itched to tell him. _You are not the first younger son to envy your older brother. Everywhere in the world there are younger sons envying their older brothers. Younger sons have been envying their older brothers since the beginning of time._

Stannis would deny it to the seven hells and back, no doubt. “It is not envy. I am not as craven as you are, Uncle,” he would say.

The day would come when Stannis would see it for what it was. Or not. Some men preferred to lie to themselves. Axell … well, Axell could lie to others with impunity. For his own benefit, he could lie with the best of them. But he knew not to lie to himself. He _envied_ Alester, there was no point denying that. Tall and courtly Alester, whose ears were not overlarge and did not sprout unseemly hairs. The gods were not content to make him the oldest son; they also gave him the gift of good looks which was rarely granted to the Florents.

The Seven were certainly cruel and capricious. Axell could agree with Stannis about _that_ at least. 


	3. Oberyn & Doran, forgive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ariannenymerosmartell on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Oberyn Martell & Doran Martell, forgive**

Oberyn asked, of his good-sister, “She will not return to Dorne?”

Doran shook his head, slowly, heavily. “Her letter is very clear. _We are wed in name only,_ she writes.”

“You should not have let her go.”

“What should I have done, pray tell? Forced her to stay? Confined Mellario in a cell atop the Spear Tower, to prevent her from returning to Norvos?”

“You know my true meaning, brother.”

 _You did not say all you must, to convince your lady wife to stay. Words are like arrows, yes. If you do not use all the weapons in your arsenal, then you are setting yourself up to be defeated._ These thoughts remained unspoken, locked inside Oberyn’s head. He and his brother had argued and debated their conflicting notions on the deployment of words many times before. This was not the right time for another iteration of that dispute. 

But it was his brother who brought the matter up. “I doomed our marriage with my silence, Mellario said. My silence regarding the blood debt that must be paid with Quentyn as coin, and my silence regarding …“

“Regarding?” 

Doran closed his eyes and said no more. Oberyn could guess the rest. His silence regarding Elia. Regarding their murdered sister and her butchered babes. 

Oberyn said, “I told Mellario if she is looking for someone to blame, then she should blame _me_. It was my sword that inflicted the blow that killed Edgar Yronwood. It was the swing of my blade that contracted the blood debt to the Yronwoods, the debt that had to be paid with your son as coin.” 

Eyes still firmly closed, Doran asked, “And what did she say to that?”

“She said she is married to _you_ , not to me. I asked her if she would forgive me for my part in the matter, and she said that I should ask my brother that question instead.”

“Forgiveness … well, forgiveness always implies _blame_ , does it not? If I were to forgive you, then it would mean that I had blamed you, at some point or another. Without blame, there would be no need to forgive.”

“And without a consciousness of guilt,” said Oberyn, “there would be no need to ask for forgiveness.”

“Are you asking me to forgive you?”

“I am asking, yes. Do you forgive me, brother?”

Doran took a long time answering. “I forgive you,” he said, finally opening his eyes. 

_Do you blame me, brother?_ That was what Oberyn truly wanted to ask. But the answer to that question, if asked directly, would not be as forthcoming, he knew. Obliqueness was his brother’s way.


	4. Catelyn & Lysa, comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Catelyn Tully & Lysa Tully, comfort**

> _“Last night I dreamed of that time Lysa and I got lost while riding back from Seagard. Do you remember? That strange fog came up and we fell behind the rest of the party.” (A Clash of Kings)_

The fog appeared so suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed like. One moment, Catelyn and Lysa were chatting and giggling about Lord Jason Mallister, and the next, they had lost sight of the rest of the riding party.

“Where are they, Cat? Father, Petyr, Edmure … all our knights and men-at-arms, where have they gone?”

Catelyn could not see further than a foot forward. She saw no sign of the others. Only trees, and more trees, their branches swaying to and fro, looking eerily like grasping hands.

Lysa’s imagination took full flight, mingling with her dread. “Did the fog get them? Is this some sort of evil trickery by a woods witch? Have they been abducted and taken to the witch’s realm?”

The feast welcoming them to Seagard had featured a performance by a troupe of mummers, a performance heavy on spells and incantations recited by make-believe woods witches and sorceresses of various incarnations. A mummer’s farce it literally was, and yet, so haunting and unforgettable had the performance been that afterwards, Lysa (and Catelyn too, truth to tell) had a hard time falling asleep in the guest chamber that had been especially prepared to honor Lord Tully’s daughters. 

“Hush, Lysa, there is no witchery or sorcery here,” said Catelyn, trying to sound bolder and more certain than she was actually feeling. “Father and everyone else got through before the fog began to rise, I am certain. We … we are a bit behind, that is all.”

This only seemed to increase her sister’s apprehension. Lysa’s voice rose, anxiously, “Then they do not know where we are? We are lost, you mean? Tell me true, are we lost, Cat?”

“We are not lost. We are only delayed. We will catch up with them, after the fog has cleared.”

“What if it never clears? What if we are trapped here, forever?”

“That will not happen!” Catelyn insisted. “I will call for help.”

But her voice, even when she shouted as loudly as she could, sounded so weak and tiny, as if the fog had greedily swallowed it whole. 

Catelyn shook her head vigorously. No, she must not let wild imaginings get the better of her. The fog was not a living creature. It was merely a natural phenomenon, like the rain, or a rainbow. 

A rainbow had never made Lysa cry, though. “No one will help us,” she sobbed. “No one will come for us. They are gone, all gone.”

“They will come back for us. We only have to be brave, for a little while, just a little while,” Catelyn said, in an attempt to console her sister. 

Lysa stared at Catelyn, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “You … you are afraid too, Cat,” she said, half-dazed, as if the realization had shaken her to the core. Wiping her tears with the back of her hand, Lysa added, “You are just as scared as I am.”

Catelyn dared not say a word, in case the wrong word would induce fresh burst of tears from her sister. That was when Lysa began to sing. It was a song their mother had sung to serenade them to sleep, when they were little girls, a song about the many daughters of the river. Lysa remembered all the names, it turned out, even the ones Catelyn had forgotten. And her singing voice had more of the tone and timber of their lady mother’s voice. Their father often said that Catelyn resembled their mother in looks, in the cheekbones and in the set of her jaw, but it was Lysa whose voice was closest to Lady Minisa’s. Catelyn found herself comforted by this, and by the song Lysa was singing, with her eyes closed and her brows furrowed in concentration.

 _Mother, help us find our way home,_ Catelyn silently prayed.


	5. Andrey & Deziel, rivalry

**Andrey Dalt & Deziel Dalt, rivalry**

> _Drey had wanted her, [Arianne] knew; so had his brother Deziel, the Knight of Lemonwood. […] Drey’s brother Ser Deziel Dalt had once aspired to marry her, but he was much too dutiful to go against his prince. (A Feast for Crows)_

Drey made light of it, with copious grins and plenty of self-deprecating japes, but the truth was, the thought of Arianne as his good-sister cut him deep.

_My good-sister. My brother’s lady wife. The mother of my nieces and nephews, not the mother of my sons and daughters._

“My, my, my! As if I was ever yours, or anyone else’s,”Arianne would scoff, Drey knew, if she ever suspected him of harboring those thoughts. And rightly so; he loved her all the more for it. 

His brother Dez knew very little about Arianne, and she knew very little about Dez in return. And yet … perhaps that was an advantage in his brother’s favor. Arianne thought of Drey too much like a loyal companion, or a compatriot-in-arms. Not like a brother, no, but not exactly – 

She knew too much of his weaknesses, his faults and his flaws. She even knew his most embarrassing and humiliating secrets, the things even his own brother had never known and would never know about Drey. Meanwhile, Dez … well, Dez must have seemed like a pristine blank slate to Arianne.

“We will not make fools of ourselves, unlike those Lannister brothers who competed for Queen Rhaenyra’s hand in marriage,” Dez proclaimed. “Our rivalry will be a courteous and friendly one, as befitting the descendants of many generations of gallant and chivalrous Knights of Lemonwood.” 

“ _Princess_ Rhaenyra,” corrected Drey. “She was not yet queen at the time.”

“What were the names of her Lannister suitors, do you remember?”

Drey shrugged. “They were twins, as I recall. Who could remember their names, after all this time?”

That would be the fate of Princess Arianne’s suitors too, no doubt.

“The truth is,” Dez said, sheepishly, “she is not likely to wed either one of us.”


	6. Arianne & Trystane, childhood memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ughadrii on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Arianne Martell & Trystane Martell, childhood memory**

“How long,” Trystane asked, choosing his words carefully, “will Arianne remain in the Spear Tower?”

“As long as I deem necessary.”

“Last night, I dreamed of the time I had redspots. Do you remember, Father?”

His father nodded, and smiled one of his tired smiles, the kind that never reached his eyes, as Arianne described it. 

“I remember,” Prince Doran replied. “But how much do you remember, Trys? You were only four at the time.”

“I was almost five. Not yet, but very close. I do not remember everything, but I do remember Arianne coming into my room each night, sitting cross-legged on my bed, telling me bedtime stories.”

This time, his father’s smile _did_ reach his eyes. He was seeing it, Trystane thought, seeing Arianne as she was on that occasion.

“Did her stories help you to fall asleep?”

“Not always,” Trystane admitted. He chuckled and added, “Almost never, in truth. Her stories were far too engaging. I wanted to stay awake, to know how they would end. But they did distract me from the itching. I did not scratch myself quite as much when I was listening to Arianne’s stories.” 

“That was the reason she told you those stories, I expect.”

“My favorite, of all the bedtime stories Arianne told me,” Trystane said, “was the one about the prince in the tower.”

“The prince? Not the princess?”

“I asked her the same thing. _Isn’t it always a princess, locked in a tower, in the songs and stories?_ I said.”

“And what did your sister say to that?”

“She said she was creating her own stories, for what fun would it be only to repeat others?”

“What happened to this prince, in your sister’s story?”

“What do you think happened to him, Father?”

“I am no storyteller.”

“Everyone is a storyteller, Arianne said. Even you, Father. When she was young enough to play in the Water Gardens, you used to regale Arianne with stories about the moon embracing the sun, and about the two rivers that could only meet once a year, when they flooded over. She told me so. She remembered your stories so vividly.”

Prince Doran closed his eyes, as if pained by the memory. When he opened his eyes, he said, “This prince … he found a way to escape from the tower, I expect.”

“He did not. Not by himself, no.”

“He was rescued by his true love.”

“If you mean romantic love, then the answer is no.”

“I am certain your sister did not tell a sick little boy a story about a prince who was trapped forever inside a tower. What, then? What happened to this prince?”

“His daughter came to rescue him.”

“His _daughter_? How old was this prince? I had assumed him to be a young man.”

“Not so old. But not so young either.”

“He was a more fortunate prince than I am, it seems. His daughter –”

“His daughter loved him dearly, as your own daughter does.”

“It is not your sister’s love I doubt.”

What he doubted about his daughter, Prince Doran did not say.

“Don’t you see, Father? _You_ were the prince in Arianne’s story, the one locked in the tower. The one who was rescued by his daughter.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She did not need to. I knew from her descriptions, from the way Arianne talked about all the different kinds of smiles the prince had.”

Trystane had known right away. It was not like the other story Arianne had told him, the one about the lady and her shining prince. With that story, it was only years later that he came to the realization that it was a story about their mother and father, about Lady Mellario of Norvos and Prince Doran of Dorne.

“I am not in need of rescue,” said the prince, not in the story.

“But you are in need of your daughter, as I am in need of my sister,” said Trystane.


	7. Alysanne & Rhaena, advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Alysanne Targaryen & Rhaena Targaryen, advice**

“Are you certain you do not wish to take up Jae’s offer, of a place in his small council?”

“He would not like any counsel I have to offer, and I do not take kindly to being ignored, Aly. I have no desire to be a mere figurehead in his council.”

“But you could still remain in court. You need not go to Harrenhal, dearest sister. It is such a gloomy and forbidding place. It breaks my heart, to think how lonely you would be in that castle.”

“Unlike you, I do not fear solitude. I have never feared it. There have been times in the past when I yearned for it, in fact. In any case, King’s Landing could not sustain the presence of two queens at the same time. You would tire of having me here soon enough.”

“I would never –“

“You would never say it to my face, but you would feel it nonetheless, deep down. I _know_ you, Aly. I have known you since you were a squalling red-faced babe in your cradle. And knowing you, let me offer you this piece of advice before I depart. A queen consort is still a consort, not to be confused with a ruling queen. Always remember that, and you will be spared a great deal of pain in your life.”

“I do not understand, sister. Are you warning me against exceeding my position?”

“No, not at all. I am telling you that the day will come when you will discover the limit of that position. As our lady mother did. And as _I_ did, after Aerea and Rhaella were born and I begged their father with tears in my eyes to take them with us across the narrow sea. You know me, Aly. I do not shed tears lightly. I shed plenty on that day, but Aegon … he insisted on claiming his throne. _I am the rightful king,_ he said, _and I will sit on the Iron Throne come hell or high water._ He would not flee to Tyrosh or Myr or Volantis to protect our girls. My tears and my pleas went unheeded that day. I was his older sister as well as his lady wife, and before that day, he had always sought my counsel, but no longer.”

“Jaehaerys –“

“– is not Aegon, I know. But he is a king nonetheless, and a man for all that. The power and influence of a queen consort is _conditional_ , conditional on how much the king would allow her to wield. You may think of Jaehaerys and yourself as one, as a united front, but the fact remains that he is the ruler and you are his consort.”

“I have never forgotten that. Truly, I have not, sister.”

“That is easy enough to say, when you have not yet come up against the unyielding wall of his firm resistance. This is not a curse, nor a warning, Aly. This is my advice as your older sister, so you will be prepared, and you will not be too gravely disappointed and disillusioned, when that day finally comes.”


	8. Elia & Doran, protect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Elia Martell & Doran Martell, protect**

“Are you certain, Doran?”

“I have never been more certain about anything in my life.”

He was speaking of his betrothal to Lady Mellario of Norvos, the announcement of which had surprised so many in Dorne.

“It has not been a long acquaintance,” Elia pointed out. “You met her for the first time during your travel in the Free Cities, and you made another stop in Norvos to see her again during your return journey home. All your other interactions with her have occurred through letters, and letters are not the same as meeting in person.”

(Letters were not even close to being the same, Elia could attest, from her own experience. Letters could conceal and deny what must be revealed and affirmed when you were face to face with your beloved.) 

Doran nodded, seemingly conceding her point. The expression on his face conceded nothing, however. “You are right, Elia. You are absolutely right in all your reasoning. And yet … I feel as if I have known her all my life. Every word she writes is engraved in my memory.”

“Every word she writes has been translated by a scribe. The Common Tongue is not Lady Mellario’s native tongue. You could be misunderstanding the true meaning of her words, and she yours.”

“She has been learning our Common Tongue most diligently, alongside the sworn shield her father will be sending to accompany her to Dorne. By the time we are wed, Mellario would have no trouble understanding any Dornishman or Dornishwoman.”

That was not quite the point Elia was making, but the rapturous look on Doran’s face as he spoke of Lady Mellario stayed her tongue. This was not a look she had seen on his face before. On Oberyn’s face, often enough – too often, she sometimes thought. But not Doran, not her older brother. 

She had always felt a protective instinct towards him. He was the older by nine years, yet he seemed so unworldly at times, so naïve about the ways of the world, compared to his much younger sister and brother. 

Oberyn was convinced that this was merely a facade that Doran had chosen to put on for the world. The slower he seemed, the more doubtful and hesitant he appeared, then the safer it would be for him, and for Dorne. Dorne’s enemies as well as the more quarrelsome of the Dornish lords and ladies would underestimate him, and they would be lulled into complacency. “This is a long game he is playing, as the future Prince of Dorne,” Oberyn had said.

There was that, perhaps, but there was also something else at the core. Doran had always been cautious and deliberate; how much of that was his natural disposition and how much was what he had trained himself to be, Elia could not say. He rarely showed his passion. This was the first she could remember, in truth. But it burned so brightly, and rose to such a great height, that she was concerned that the fall, when it came, would be devastating to him. 

“Do you wish to protect me from heartbreak, Elia?”

Elia flushed. “I suppose you think that is very foolish of me? Or even presumptuous, as your much younger sister?”

“I do not think it foolish or presumptuous. Not in the least. I remember when I set eyes on you for the first time. I swore to myself that I would protect you from all harm. I was a boy of nine at the time. I would not even be staying in Sunspear, where you were. I was only returning home for a short visit. I had no way of protecting you from harm while I was squiring for Lord Gargalen in Salt Shore. And yet, I wanted to do it all the same.”


	9. Samantha & Sansara, separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For valoisqueens on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Samantha Tarly & Sansara Tarly, separation**

“But he’s so old!” exclaimed Sansara.“His oldest son is two years older than you are, Sam.”

“Younger. Lyonel Hightower is two years younger than I am. Lord Ormund –“

“– has three sons already. Isn’t he content with that? Why does he need a young bride at his age?”

Ormund Hightower’s first wife had died in childbed. Some men seemed to have a habit of losing multiple wives in childbed, observed Sansara. If Sam – no, not Sam! Not her sister, not her fierce, fiery and spirited sister. Surely Sam –

But of course it was possible. It was always possible, with _any_ woman. “Every woman is vulnerable in the birthing bed, just as every man is vulnerable in the field of battle,” her mother had told Sansara, after her moonblood came for the first time. Sam had received the same reminder, a year earlier. 

Sam was rolling her eyes, responding to Sansara’s remark about Ormund Hightower’s age. “At his age? You speak as if he is a grandsire in his dotage. He is still young enough to lead an army into battle. And he wishes to wed again because he needs a mistress of the Hightower, of course.” 

“I doubt that is his only reason for wanting a new bride.”

“It is not, to be sure, but _that_ is the reason that matters to _me_.”

Sansara sighed. “I wish I could go with you.”

“To Oldtown? Why, sister, I am not marrying a Targaryen. He cannot wed us both.”

“Not to wed him, silly! Maester Aelon says the Hightower’s library contains many rare and precious manuscripts. It still pales in comparison to the collection housed in the great library of the Citadel, of course, but I suppose … even the Lady of Oldtown could not help me gain admission to _that_ sacred realm?”

“Ahhh, so it is the _books_ in Oldtown whose company you seek. And here I was, thinking that my sister wishes to come with me to Oldtown because she would miss my company after I am gone from Horn Hill.”

Gone. Gone from Horn Hill. Gone from the bedchamber they had shared since as long as Sansara could remember. Sam would not be waking Sansara up far too early in the morning with her naughty and mischievous songs. They would not be quarrelling over how reasonable or unreasonable it was for Sansara to keep a candle burning past midnight to finish a book. Their ferocious and passionate debates about some point of history or another would no longer unsettle and disconcert Maester Aelon. 

It was the thought of these regular occurrences (some of which she had found profoundly irritating at times) rather than the memory of any large, significant event that caused Sansara’s eyes to well with tears. She had always known that she and her older sister would be separated one day. That was inevitable, part of becoming a woman, as their lady mother had put it. But knowing what would happen _someday_ was one thing, and having it actually happening at this moment was quite another.

She ran into her sister’s embrace. “Oh, Sam, I will miss you so.”


	10. Daenerys & Viserys, fear

**Daenerys Targaryen & Viserys Targaryen, fear**

She always tried. She always tried to understand his fears. He had so many, and would admit to so few of them. He would grow wroth when she tried to encourage him to talk to her about his fears, for there was no one else willing to listen, after Ser Willem died. He would grow even angrier when she tried to comfort him as best she could; clumsily, admittedly, for she had almost no experience of being comforted out of her fears herself.

He had known what it was like to be comforted out of his fears, once upon a time. Their mother had done that for him, “before you killed her coming out of her womb,” he said. It was worse, a lot worse, to have known something so precious and then to lose it, he said, than to never know it at all. She could not miss something she never had, he claimed, while _he_ missed it every waking moment of his life. 

He never tried to understand _her_ fears. Never understood that _he_ had been one of the biggest fears of her childhood. (Or perhaps he understood that all too well, and used it to his advantage.) If his nightmares were full of visions of the Usurper, the Usurper’s dogs and the Usurper’s hired knives, or of the storm that raged the day their mother died, her nightmares often included _him_ in it. And the chilling tone of his voice when he whispered, “You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?” had kept her up on too many sleepless nights.

She always tried to understand his fears. She _must_ , she believed, for no one else would. Why didn’t he feel the same? Why couldn’t he feel the same? She was his blood as much as he was hers. He was all she had, as much as _she_ was all _he_ had. They were each other’s only remaining family. They could have been a comfort to one another. But he did not want that. He never seemed to want that. Perhaps he thought it would be a weakness unbecoming to the rightful King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, to be comforted by his little sister. 

It would not have been a weakness unbecoming to _any_ king, to try to soothe the fears of his only surviving sibling, but he never tried to do that either. 


	11. Rodrik & Maron, mourning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For dagongreyjoy on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Rodrik Greyjoy & Maron Greyjoy, mourning**

_What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger._

Rodrik may rise again, someday, but Maron will never again hear him sing his beloved reaving songs at the top of his lungs. He will never again see Rodrik doing the finger dance while standing on a table with a horn of ale in one hand and an axe in the other. 

They will never again race each other across the bridges from the Great Keep to the Bloody Keep, feeling the wind lashing against their faces and listening to the waves breaking against the rocks. 

_Look down_ , they had challenged one another. _You must look down, to the deepest, blackest depth of the sea, or else you’re a coward._

Theon will not mourn Rodrik the same way. He is too frightened of his oldest brother. Too frightened of _both_ his brothers. Nine years of age, and he acts as if he still had the taste for mother’s milk. What a damn disgrace! The son of Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and Rock and Son of the Sea Wind should not be such a weakling. 

_We’ll make a man of him yet, brother,_ Rodrik had said. _There is time._

It turns out there is no time. Not for Rodrik. 

And Asha, well, Asha is a girl, for all that she tries so hard to keep up with her older brothers. A girl could never understand a man’s need for revenge.

He will _not_ cry. Crying is for craven folks from the green lands. Crying is for soft little boys like Theon. He, Maron Greyjoy, is a _man_ , and a proud Ironborn.

Theon. Now his only living brother, with Rodrik dead. If only Asha had been born with a cock … but she had not. 

Maron grunts, and throws his axe to the wall. It does not stick, and that increases his fury and frustration even more. 

_I will avenge you,_ Maron swears, to the shade of his dead brother. He will kill Jason Mallister with his own hand. He will bury his axe in Mallister’s neck. He will pay the iron price and saw off Mallister’s finger to relieve that greenlander of his signet ring bearing the silver eagle of Seagard.

The Prince of Seagard. He will claim that title too, in his brother’s place.

 _I will be the Prince of Seagard, while Father is King of the Iron Islands,_ Rodrik had said, before he left for battle. _And when I am King of the Iron Islands, you will be the Prince of Seagard, Maron._

 _You’ll have sons, plenty of them,_ Maron had replied.

Theon is peeking through the slightly open door of Rodrik’s bedchamber. Maron howls, “Be gone! Be gone, I tell you!” This is _not_ the brother he is looking for. Theon scurries away in fear.

Rodrik’s bed is empty, and will be empty forevermore. _Where are you, brother? When will you rise again?_

Maron sinks down to his knees, calling out Rodrik’s name in his head, squeezing his eyes shut to prevent even one drop of tear from falling down his cheek.

_What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger._

Harder and stronger. That is how he must be. Harder. And stronger. No tears. No reminiscing about the past. No reaching out for days gone by. 

Maron rises to his feet and shouts, at the top of his lungs, “Mallister, your head is mine!” 


	12. Eddard & Benjen, missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Eddard Stark & Benjen Stark, missing. (A ** **conversation between the brothers before Benjen departs to join the Night’s Watch.)**

Ned held the lantern steady. Benjen stared at Lyanna’s likeness, carved in stone. The stonemason had not known Lyanna as well as he had known Brandon and Lord Rickard. Her likeness looked beautiful, but it was not the sister Benjen remembered. 

Down here, in the crypt, was where they had played many of their games, and where Lyanna had confided her secrets to him. Perhaps she would have confided them to Ned instead, had Ned been in Winterfell rather than the Eyrie. If she had done that, then perhaps –

“She wanted to come home,” Ned said, breaking the train of his brother’s speculation.

 _She is not truly home,_ thought Benjen.

They used to be a family of six, if only for a short while. Mother was taken far too early, and that left five. Then Father and Brandon were murdered in King’s Landing, and that left three. Ned brought Lyanna’s bones home, but not Lyanna herself. That left two. 

And soon there would be Ned and _only_ Ned in Winterfell. Benjen hardened his resolve – no, Ned would _not_ be alone. He had his lady wife Catelyn and his son Robb by his side, and later there would be other sons and daughters too, no doubt. And Jon, Ned had Jon as well.

“It is not too late to change your mind. The raven I sent to Castle Black made no mention of the fact that one of the men coming from Winterfell to join the Night’s Watch is a Stark.” 

“The Starks of Winterfell have always sent one of our own to the Wall, to be a part of the black brothers. That is a time-honored tradition of our House.”

“When there are plenty of younger sons and younger brothers to spare, certainly. But now I only have the one brother. I need you by my side, Ben. Winterfell needs you. The North needs you.”

“There are too many ghosts here. I cannot be of any help to you, while I am haunted by them.”

“You are not the only one. The only one haunted by ghosts.”

“Your ghosts,” said Benjen, “do not arise out of guilt.”

“The Mad King killed Father and Brandon. Lyanna died of childbed fever. You have nothing to reproach yourself with.”

Benjen’s silence spoke volumes.

After a while, Ned added, “I miss them too, all of them. You are not the only one, Ben.”

“I know. And that makes it all the more painful. I miss them all the more, Ned, every time I see you missing them.”

They were raised to be strong and steadfast men of the North, and while it was not impermissible to speak of missing the dead, for two brothers to speak of missing one another while both were still alive was quite a different matter. Benjen said it nonetheless, as he embraced his brother. “I will miss you dearly, Ned, when I am at the Wall.”

“If you do not leave, then you will not have to miss me at all.”


	13. Samwell & Talla, missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Samwell Tarly & Talla Tarly, missing**

> _Sam tried to make himself remember his mother, or his little sister Talla, or that girl Gilly at Craster’s Keep. (A Storm of Swords)_

The Tarly sisters differed on what they missed the most about their older brother. Randa, the oldest of the three sisters, the one closest in age to Sam, missed their shared excursions to the kitchen. Sam would know just the right thing to say to wheedle lemon cakes and blueberry tarts from the cooks. And if wheedling did not work, then he would distract their attention by regaling them with stories from the many books he had read, while Randa snatched the sweet treats and made her getaway. 

Marla, the middle sister, the gentlest of the three, missed the songs he used to sing. The songs she loved best were the ones Sam had made up on his own. He had a song for their mother, a song for each of his sisters, and even a song for Dickon. He had a song for lulling the sleepless to sleep, a song for waking you up on a rainy morning, and even a song to soothe your fears on a stormy night. 

Talla missed Sam’s round face with his kindly eyes. She missed running to him and burying her face in his soft, fleshy and comfortable arm, after she had quarreled with one of her sisters. She missed how his sobs would quickly turn to smiles when she tried to console him, no matter how awkward and clumsy her effort at consoling was.

Their lord father used to tell Sam, “Talla is braver than you are. You should be ashamed of yourself, to be more cowardly than a mere girl, than the youngest of your sisters.”

It rarely worked, his effort to shame Sam by using his youngest daughter. Sam would only gaze at Talla, warmly and affectionately, and then he would say, “Talla _is_ a brave girl, Father. She does not mind the dark, not at all.” 

Randyll Tarly never paid much attention to his daughters otherwise. He left their care and welfare in his lady wife’s hands entirely. His only concern, he stressed, was with his heir, the one who would be the Lord of Horn Hill after himself, the one to whom he would be passing Heartsbane, the Tarly’s ancestral sword of five hundred years. A man’s legacy, he held forth, rested on the shoulders of his _sons,_ not his daughters. He took the birth of three daughters in three years as a personal slight against himself. His heir was shaping up to be a very unsatisfactory man, in Lord Randyll’s eyes, and he needed a replacement. 

“Sam never wanted to join the Night’s Watch. Father forced him, I am sure, because Father wants Dickon to be his heir instead,” Randa said.

“Sam is better off at the Wall,” Talla declared.

“How can you say that?” Randa exclaimed. “He never wanted to go. Sam must hate it there. Imagine how cold and miserable our brother must be. It’s not fair! Why must he leave at all? Horn Hill is his home too. He is _Mother’s_ son too, not just Father’s. And he is _our_ brother too, not just Dickon’s.”

“Don’t you miss him?” Marla asked.

“Of course I miss him,” Talla replied. “I miss him every day. And he misses us too, very much, I am sure. But it is better for Sam _not_ to be where Father is. It is safer for him to be at the Wall than to remain in Horn Hill.”

Randa and Marla exchanged troubled glances.

“You know I am right, you know it!” Talla insisted. 

Her sisters sighed, and finally nodded in agreement.

It was better to miss the living, no matter how far away they were, than to miss the dead, Talla said to herself.


	14. Alannys & Gwynesse, childhood memory

**Alannys Harlaw & Gwynesse Harlaw, childhood memory**

Their brother Rodrik’s way of trying to bring Alannys back to the world was to speak to her about the present, but Gwynesse knew that the present held very little appeal to her sister. The present was a world in which Alannys’s two older sons were gone from her embrace, never to return. The present was a world in which her youngest and only surviving son was held hostage by the Starks, already considered as good as dead by her cold-hearted husband.

Instead, Gwynesse spoke to her sister about the past. She spoke of their childhood – though in truth, Gwynesse’s childhood did not intersect much with Alannys’s own. Rodrik and Alannys were much closer in age, and _they_ were the true childhood companions. Gwynesse held certain memories of her sister that even Rodrik could not recall, however, being too young himself at the time. 

“It rained for seven days and six nights, before you were born. I know you have always suspected that it was merely a tall tale, because our late mother used to say that it rained for seven days and seven nights. It was _not_ seven nights, for you were born before nightfall on the seventh day of rain.”

“You were one of the ugliest babes I had ever seen. You were, it is true. _This one will never grow into a great beauty,_ Grandmother Harlaw said, _but her face will have character._ You never knew her, did you? She died the following year, while you were still learning to take your first step. She was not wrong. She was seldom wrong, our grandmother.”

“Roddy was the name you called Rodrik, when you first began to speak. That became your pet name for him even after your tongue had mastered Rodrik. You were his Lanny and he was your Roddy, until one of our cousins mocked him to his face and called him Roddy the Noddy. You never called our brother Roddy again after that.” 

The stories were many, and the memories varied from the commonplace to the extraordinary. Alannys would listen in perfect and unbroken silence, but each time, before her sister left, she would hold Gwynesse’s hand and whisper, “Will you tell me more tomorrow?”

Rodrik wanted his Lanny back, his Lanny with the laughing eyes and the fierce, strong face. Gwynesse spoke of her sister’s past not as something that must be reclaimed, or as a different self that must be brought back to life, but only as a reminder of a life that had been worth living. 


	15. Aerea & Rhaella, teamwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For valoisqueens on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Aerea Targaryen & Rhaella Targaryen, teamwork**

“I hate it here. _Willful, willful, willful._ The septas all say the same thing. They’re like parrots.”

“Why do they call you willful?”

“Because they think it’s not right to call a princess _pig-headed_ , I suppose. I wish I could go to King’s Landing.”

“It’s not so nice there.”

“That was _before_ , when the _bad_ king was on the throne. It will be different now.”

“Will it?”

“Of course it will. You’ll see. It won’t be as scary. The bad king is dead, remember?”

“And our uncle is king, not our mother’s uncle. “

“Our uncle, yes. But it should have been –”

“Hush. We are not to speak of that, Mother said.”

“Why can’t we? There’s no one else here.”

“There’s always someone listening, Mother said, even if we can’t see who it is.”

“Mother said, Mother said. She never said much to _me_.”

“She couldn’t have, before. She never had the chance. The bad king sent you here so quickly. Spirited you away, Mother said.”

“If I’m at court, then –“

“There are other scary things at court. Not as scary as the bad king, but …”

“Scary things like what?”

“It will still be loud. Louder, maybe. And the crowd, it’s going to be even bigger. The bad king didn’t have feasts and tourneys and balls, but Uncle Jaehaerys will.”

“It will be _glorious!_ Oh, it will be ever so splendid. Every day will be different. Not like here. _It’s time to read. It’s time to pray. It’s time to reflect._ Every day it’s the same. Read, pray, reflect. Read, pray, reflect. I want to do other things.”

“Read, pray, reflect. That sounds … nice.”

“Nice? It’s _dull_.”

“Dull is safe. Dull won’t get you hurt.”

“He really _is_ dead, you know. The bad king. He can’t come back from the dead to catch you.”

“I _know_ that. I’m six, just like you. I’m not a baby.”

“Then why are you so scared to go back to court?”

“If you don’t like it here –“

“I _hate_ it here!” 

“Then you should go to King’s Landing. As me.”

“As _you_? Why? Why can’t we go together?”

“Because I don’t want to be there.”

“That’s silly! That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.The bad king is gone, so now _everyone_ wants to be at court.”

“ _I_ don’t.”

“You mean you want to stay here? As _me_?”

“Yes!”

“You don’t have to pretend to be me. We should just go to them and … and –“

“And tell them what?”

“They won’t let us, I suppose?”

“They won’t.”

“Well, we’ll just have to fool them.”

“Not Mother. We can’t fool Mother. We have to tell _her_.”

“Why? She won’t know the difference. She doesn’t really know us.”

“Mother … well, she does know me. A little bit. I’ve been with her for a year.”

“She’ll stop us, if she knows. She’d want _you_ by her side, not me. She doesn’t know me. She sent us away when we were little babes.”

“She sent us away to keep us safe. She didn’t want the bad king to kill us.”

“I know that. But she never saw us again until that wedding. _You_ stayed with her, not me. We have to fool her too.” 

“We _can’t_. We can’t fool her. She’ll know, right away. Other people won’t, but Mother will. We have to tell her the truth, if we want to do it.”

“She’ll never say yes, never!”

“She will, if we convince her that this is what we both want. I know she will.”

“You know her better, I suppose. But do you really want to do it? You’re the heir. You’ll give that away, just like that?”

“I won’t be heir for long. Uncle Jaehaerys will have his own heir soon. It’s not so different from the last time, with the bad king.”

“What if you hate it here, just like me? What if you want to change back?”

“I’m not going to hate it.”

“But what if?”

“What ifyou want to come back here?”

“I won’t, not ever, not _ever ever ever.”_

“And I won’t want to come back to King’s Landing.”

“I have to tell you some things first. About this motherhouse, and all the septas here. You have to recognize them. You have to know their names, and who are the meanest and the kindest.”

“And I’ll tell you about the Red Keep, and what it’s like at court.”

“And about Mother. You’ll have to tell me about her too.”


	16. Daeron & Maester Aemon, comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Daeron Targaryen & Maester Aemon, comfort**

_A maester’s counsel as well as a brother’s comfort._ When Maester Aemon first took up his duties as the maester at his brother’s keep, he had hoped to provide both of those to Daeron. And yet, in the mornings after his brother had dreamed those recurring dreams of dragons, he often feared that he was failing on _both_ counts. 

“Do you suppose Daenys the Dreamer ever tried to drown her sorrow with Arbor gold or Dornish red?” Daeron asked.

“Not Arbor gold or Dornish red, most likely. When Daenys the Dreamer dreamed of the destruction of Valyria, she had not yet arrived on Dragonstone.” 

Daeron’s hand paused, in the act of reaching for the flagon of Dornish red. “But surely,” he protested, “her prophetic dreams did not end with the dream about Valyria’s destruction. Did she never dream again, after she left Valyria?”

Aemon the maester replied, “The historical accounts told us very little about her life on Dragonstone. We are told whose wife and mother she eventually became, but not much more. Her daughter Elaena would rule Dragonstone alongside her son Aegon, after the death of her husband Gaemon, called Gaemon the Glorious. But it was never written that Daenysherself ruled alongside her brother-husband.”

“Rhae would call that a great travesty,” said Daeron, his lips forming a semblance of a smile, as he thought of his second sister, the youngest of his siblings. 

Aemon the brother smiled too. “She would indeed. _Daenys_ should have been the one called _the Glorious_ , Rhae would say.” 

Aemon the brother asked, “Does the wine truly work, to drown your sorrow?”

“Sorrow.” Daeron repeated the word, as if measuring it for size. His smile had disappeared completely. “Perhaps I should have said _fear_ instead. To drown my fear. But that is too cowardly, no? Too cowardly for the heir to the throne to admit such a thing.”

“There is courage,” said Aemon the maester, “in admitting our fears. Sometimes admitting our fears requires the greatest courage of all.”

Daeron laughed. His laughter was a mirthless and sardonic one. “Our father would not agree, I’m sure.”

“Our father –” Aemon began, before halting. Talking about their father often distressed Daeron even more, in the aftermath of these dreams of his. “What do you fear, my prince?” Maester Aemon asked instead.

Daeron’s reply was not a direct answer to the question. “Daenys the Dreamer, they called her. Daenys the Believed, she should have been called instead. Her father _believed_ her. Believed her enough to uproot his entire wealth and family, dragons included. Do you suppose her father was more likely to believe Daenys because she had been a maiden at the time?” 

Maester Aemon replied, gently, “I don’t see what being a maiden has to do with it.”

“She was _pure_ , untouched.”

“Do you fear that you would _not_ be believed, or that you _would_ be believed?”

“Ahhh, therein lies the rub, brother. I fear _both_ , Maester, and I do not know which one I fear the most. And isn’t that the most fearful thing of all?”

The maester and the brother both coaxed, “Will you tell me what your dream is about, this time?”

Daeron shook his head, insistently, vehemently. “I don’t want to remember! If I tell you, then I will have to remember.”

“Telling is not just remembering. It is also –”

“Also?”

“Telling is also _sharing_ the burden.”

Daeron looked appalled. “Sharing the burden? You are my younger brother. How could I share that burden with you? How could I inflict such a thing on my own brother, when I know full well how much pain it has caused me?”

“I am a maester of the Citadel, sworn to serve and to counsel,” Maester Aemon of the Citadel reminded Prince Daeron of House Targaryen.

And sworn to heal, though the maester was less than confident of his ability to heal the prince’s pain.

“If I tell you, what would you do with it? What _could_ you do with it? My dreams are like the dreams of Daenys the Dreamer, in that they come true, just like her dream of Valyria’s Doom came true. But my dreams are _not_ like the dreams of Daenys the Dreamer, because they are not as easily interpreted, before they come true. She saw Valyria’s destruction by fire, as clear as day, as definite as if it had been written in stone. _The Doom will come! We must flee for our lives!_ ”

Aemon took hold of his brother’s hand. The touch seemed to embolden Daeron to go further, “My dreams are not as easily deciphered. I do not know what must be done, to prevent the calamity from happening. I do not even know who must be warned of the danger. I dream, and yet I do nothing. I do nothing because I _know_ nothing! Because I _understand_ nothing! How many lives could I have saved, if only I had understood? Uncle Baelor, for one.”

The brother pulled Daeron into an embrace, willing his own tears not to fall as his brother began to weep. The maester said, dry-eyed, “We will seek out the answers together. There are sources in the Citadel … rare manuscripts, Archmaesters proficient in dragonlore. It is not impossible. And two heads … many heads, are better than one.”

Daeron raised his voice and his tear-stained face, hope evident in both. “Not … impossible?”


	17. Elia & Obara, role model

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Elia Sand & Obara Sand, role model**

“I want to be just like you, when I am a woman grown.”

Obara’s reply was swift and disdainful. “You do not, little sister. You only think you do.”

Elia frowned. “I am not a little sister. Not anymore. Do not mistake me for Obella, or for Doree and Loree.”

Obara’s expression softened, though that fact would not have been apparent to any stranger watching her. Her sisters would know, though, and her cousin Arianne too. “You are all my little sisters,” she said, counting Nym, Tyene, Sarella and Arianne under that banner as well. 

Elia refused to be moved, this time. She persisted, “Are you saying that I don’t know my own mind? Are you calling me a fool?”

“You are not a fool, only a young girl.”

Elia crossed her arms, defiantly. “I am _not_ a girl. I am a –”

“A lady? It is our sister Nym you should look to, then, if you are looking for a sister to emulate. Her mother is a highborn lady, just like your own.”

“Nym is too much of a lady.”

“Do not underestimate our willowy sister. The Lady Nym keeps her knives well-hidden, like a good and gracious lady would, but she carries her weapons on her person at all times.”

“I don’t want to keep my weapons well-hidden. I want to wear them openly and proudly, like you do. I want to ride the fastest stallions in Dorne, like you do. I want to be a lance, just like you.”

Obara lurched forward, bending down at the waist so that her face was mere inches from Elia’s. “I have a rage inside me, El. A rage that burns as bright as Nymeria’s star. Do you have that in you, little sister? _Do you?”_

Elia stared back, unblinking. “I was named after our murdered aunt. Do you not think that I have a rage inside me as well? The rage of the wronged and not yet avenged?”

Obara took a step back. She studied the girl intently, for a long while. “If you wish to be a lady,” she said, eventually, “then be a lady. If you wish to be a lance, then be a lance. But whatever it is you choose to do, do it because it is what you wish for yourself. Not because others wish it for you, or because you are trying to follow the footsteps of others. Do not try to be Elia Martell, or Obara Sand, or Nymeria Sand, orOberyn Martell, for that matter. Be _Elia Sand_ , whoever that turns out to be. _”_

“Can I be both?”

“Both?”

“A lady _and_ a lance.”

Obara’s mouth twisted into a smile. “Lady Lance?”


	18. Stannis & Robert, mocking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Stannis Baratheon & Robert Baratheon, mocking. (Stannis is given Dragonstone rather than Storm’s End.)**

> _“When Robert gave the place to Renly, Stannis clenched his jaw so tight I thought his teeth would shatter.” (A Clash of Kings)_

Robert would deny it afterwards, deny it with a wounded look on his face as if _he_ was the one who had been mocked and slighted, but his lady wife’s presence when Robert broke the news to Stannis about “the great honor” he intended to bestow on his brother was evidence enough in Stannis’ eyes.

The queen looked amused, not perturbed or angry, as she surely would have been if naming Stannis as the Lord of Dragonstone was truly Robert’s way of honoring his younger brother’s position as his heir, until a son was born to him.

And the announcement that immediately followed, regarding what Robert intended to do with Storm’s End, certainly sealed Stannis’ initial impression.

Unlike the previous piece of news regarding Dragonstone, Cersei Lannister was without a doubt surprised by (and greatly displeased with) Robert’s proclamation regarding Storm’s End. She objected, “Our son –”

“Our son will be King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. He cannot be Lord of Storm’s End at the same time. Six of the seven kingdoms in the realm will surely mislike it, according to my lord Hand. They will fear and suspect that special privileges and dispensations denied to the rest of the realm would be accorded to the stormlands, Jon said.”

“I was speaking of our second son. Or our daughter, should we be blessed with only the one son.”

Robert laughed. “Patience, my lady. Even our first son has not yet made his appearance.”

“Perhaps he would arrive sooner, if his father would ever deign to come to bed sober.”

While Robert was trading barbs with his queen, Stannis was seething. Had he heard it wrong? No, he had heard it correctly. It was preposterous and incomprehensible beyond reason. Renly. Renly, as the Lord of Storm’s End. Renly, who was his younger brother, who came after him in the line of succession. Renly, who was a boy and not a man. Renly, who was the _third_ son and not the second. 

Robert should have named him as the Lord of Storm’s End the moment he took the Iron Throne, thought Stannis. Jon Arryn had the right of it: the king of the Seven Kingdoms should not also be the Lord Paramount of one of those kingdoms. Stannis was the second son of Lord Steffon Baratheon, and thus the next in line to inherit Storm’s End after Robert.

Yet, Robert had delayed and prevaricated. First, he told Stannis, “I need you to build me a fleet, and root out the Targaryen loyalists from Dragonstone. Storm’s End can wait.” (Why he could not be named Lord of Storm End’s while at the same time be trusted to complete those tasks, Stannis had never understood.) 

And now, after Stannis had faithfully executed Robert’s command to build him a fleet and root out the Targaryen loyalists, Robert’s justification was, “Dragonstone needs a firm hand, and a man to rule it, not a boy.”

“And what of Storm’s End?” demanded Stannis. “Doesn’t it require a man to rule it?”

“Storm’s End is secure enough.”

“You forget who it was who kept it secure, throughout the long year of war, and even before that, while its lord was spending more time in the Eyrie than in his own castle.”

“I’m not like to forget, with you reminding me of it at every turn.”

“I would have no need to remind you, if you ever show any sign of remembering.” 

“Must you take _everything_ as an insult? This is an honor, Stannis. A great honor bestowed on you by your king and your brother.”

Stannis scoffed. “It makes a _mockery_ of honor. Even a king does not have the right to deprive a man of his rights, without a just cause. There is nothing _just_ about this decision of yours.”

“A mockery? It makes a mockery of honor to grant you Dragonstone? Dragonstone has been the seat of the king’s heir for more than two hundred years. Until a son is born to me, you are my heir, Stannis.”

“Dragonstone was the seat for the heirs of Targaryen kings. We are _Baratheons_ , not Targaryens. Have you forgotten that so quickly?”

Robert flushed, his face turning as red as a beet. “You make a mockery ofyour king _,_ if you presume to say that I would ever forget.”


	19. Gwyneth & Ynys, advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For valoisqueens on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Gwyneth Yronwood & Ynys Yronwood, advice**

Oh, he was never truly in love with me, Gwynnie. It was calf-love, and perhaps not even _that_ , for I suspect Quentyn was really looking for the comfort of an older sister. _You have kind eyes_ , _like my sister,_ he used to tell me, amidst blushes and stammers, though his sister and I look nothing alike, of course. 

Will he wait for you to grow older, so you can wed him? He will not choose his own bride, Gwynnie. His father will do the choosing for him. His father wed for love, it is true, but there is no sign that Prince Doran will allow his children to follow in his footsteps. Quentyn’s sister knows it well. My husband’s natural son Daemon was once her … well, now, I should not gossip like fishmongers in the market. The good-daughter of the Lady of Godsgrace must always endeavor to –

No, I have _not_ become a prig _and_ a bore since leaving Yronwood! Come closer, Gwynnie, and I will whisper in your ear about this thwarted love. 

Yes, yes, it was all so very sad. But that was many years ago, and Princess Arianne must have recovered from the heartbreak by now. Daemon? Now, there, I could not really say. He is very courtly and courteous with me, befitting my station as his father’s lady wife, but considering our relative ages, he never confided in _me_ , of course.

No, I was not about to call you a silly girl. But Gwynnie, you must not set your hopes too high on Quentyn Martell. You are right that our father will not object to one of his daughters marrying the son of the Prince of Dorne, but the Prince of Dorne may not feel the same. Some years ago, my good-sister was a lady-in-waiting to Quentyn’s mother. She remembered a quarrel between Prince Doran and Lady Mellario, one of _many, many_ quarrels between them just before Quentyn was sent to us. On this occasion, Lady Mellario sought a promise from her husband that Quentyn’s hand in marriage would not be promised to a Yronwood, in addition to the fostering, which she greatly misliked in the first place.

No, I do not know whether the promise was made by Prince Doran. Quentyn knows nothing of it, I am _almost_ certain. Gwynnie, no, you must not ask him! What good would that do? 


	20. Willas & Garlan, protect

_ **Willas** **Tyrell & Garlan Tyrell, protect**_

> _“I see why they name you Garlan the Gallant, ser,” [Sansa] said, as she took his hand. “My lady is gracious to say so. My brother Willas gave me that name, as it happens. To protect me.” (A Storm of Swords)_

“That wasn’t very gallant, was it?”

Garlan stared at his feet. “It was not, no,” he admitted.

“Why were you shouting at our guests? Did they call me Willas the Broken? Or Willas the Crippled?”

Garlan shook his head. “They did not, no.”

“Then what did they do that warranted your ungallant display of incivility and discourtesy?”

“I heard them talking. They did not know I was listening. They said … they said that the Citadel and the Faith are the only possible paths, if the Lord of Highgarden wishes to make hissecond son his heir. The Wall is out of the question, they said, because the black brothers … because the black brothers –”

“The black brothers would not accept someone who has only the use of one leg?”

Anger flashed in Garlan’s eyes. “They are wrong! No one is sending you away. Not to the Faith. Not to the Citadel. Not anywhere.”

“Do you believe Father has any intention of sending me away?”

“Certainly not! Father loves you dearly. And even if he wants to send you away, Mother and Grandmother would not give him a moment of peace, should he ever attempt to do it.”

“Do you have a secret hankering to become Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South?”

Garlan looked wounded. “You know I do not, Willas.”

“Then their words are mere wind. You should let them pass.”

“I should have said something,” Garlan blurted out.

“When?”

“Before the tourney. No, before your match with Oberyn Martell. I should have said something. If I had, then perhaps –”

“Perhaps I would still have the use of _both_ my legs? What was it that you should have said, brother?”

“I should have said something to warn you.”

“How could you have known what would befall me?”

“I _should_ have known. You _protected_ me, when I was teased for being a plump little boy.”

“I merely gave you a sobriquet.”

“You gave me one first, before others could pin me with cruel and mocking ones, like Garlan the Gross or Garlan the Gigantic. You knew what was likely to happen, if you did not strike first.”

“Then you, too, should strike first. Find me a fitting sobriquet, so I would not be lumbered with Willas the Wounded for all time. What do you think of Willas the Witty?”

Garlan considered it, gravely and solemnly.

Willas laughed. “I merely spoke in jest. I am not so enamored with my own wit that I would like to be known as Willas the Witty for all time.”

Garlan smiled. It was good to hear his brother laughing again.


	21. Laena & Laenor, laughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Laena Velaryon & Laenor Velaryon, laughter**

“I am the greatest seafarer Westeros – no, _the world_ – has ever known.”

Laenor giggled. His sister’s voice sounded nothing like their father’s, but her tone was just right. Father never actually said what Laena said out loud, but Laena claimed it was implied, whenever Father regaled them with tales of his nine great voyages around the world. _I was not always this decrepit old man_ , Father would say, before starting his stories. _You’re not decrepit!_ Laena and Laenor would shout out in unison, though Laenor was not quite sure what decrepit really meant. _Are you saying I am an old man?_ Father would ask, with mock outrage.

Laena dropped to one knee, holding out her right hand to Laenor. “Only you could have won me away from the sea. Only you could have stolen me away from my first love, my princess.”

Laenor refused to take the extended hand. He crossed his arms and said, “I am Princess Rhaenys of House Targaryen. I am not _your_ princess.”

His sister rose to her feet, frowning. “That is not the line. Did you forget the right line?” Laena had written all the lines herself, cobbled together from Mother’s and Father’s recollections, which were not always in agreement. _I never said that,_ Father would protest. _Oh yes, you did,_ Mother would insist. 

“Mother would have said it,” Laenor insisted, arms still crossed. “She really would! Ask her. Go on, ask her!”

Laena chortled. “Oh, she would, to be sure. It’s the sort of thing she _would_ say. But Mother would not have crossed her arms like that.”

Laenor dropped his crossed arms. “I am not _your_ princess,” he repeated. He wanted to raise his eyebrows as high as Mother would have done, but his effort made Laena laugh.

“Do I look so funny?”

Laena nodded, still shaking with laughter. After her laughter finally subsided, she said, “I’ll draw you. You’ll see.”

Laenor kept the picture his sister drew under his pillow. He liked to look at it whenever he needed a good laugh. 


	22. Daella & Rhae, childhood memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Daella Targaryen & Rhae Targaryen, childhood memory**

> _“Will I talk with Egg again, find Daeron whole and happy, hear my sisters singing to their children?” (A Feast for Crows)_

Rhae was singing to her daughter about the stars. _Up above the world so high, like silver trays in the sky._ Daella smiled. It was the same song she often sang to her own children back on Tarth. Her good-mother had thought it a very strange song indeed ( _Don’t stars look more like diamonds?_ remarked the dowager Lady of Tarth), until Daella explained that her lady mother used to sing her that song when she was a little girl. At that point, her good-mother had nodded sagely and said, “Ahhh yes, the Daynes … they must have a very different notion about stars at Starfall than we do here at Evenfall Hall.”

Rhae was very much amused, when Daella told her the tale. “And I suppose you did not see fit to inform your good-mother that the song was _entirely_ our lady mother’s own invention, and has nothing to do with some ancient custom of House Dayne?”

“I expect she would be less disapproving of the song, if she believes it to be a Dayne tradition dating back to the Age of Heroes. Although _I_ never said so. Not directly. That is her own supposition.”

Rhae laughed. “Well, here she is, the wily sister I remember. Few would have guessed how wily you could be, from your serene and tranquil demeanor.”

“And you, Rhae, still look as mischievous as ever. Motherhood has not changed you much, it seems.”

“It certainly has! It has thickened my waist and my hips, for one.” Rhae dropped her voice and added, more somberly, “I used to think that it would hurt too much, to sing the same songs Mother used to sing to us, to my own daughter. It makes me miss her all the more, and yet –”

Daella finished her sister’s sentence, “And yet, it also makes you _remember_ her all the more.”

Rhae nodded. She replied, ruefully, “I had forgotten, you see. I had forgotten so many things about Mother. And I did not even know that I had forgotten them until I was trying my very best to remember. That is worse, is it not? Forgetting, and then failing to realize that you had done so.”

Daella took her sister’s hand. “You had not truly forgotten them, Rhae. Those memories … they were not erased completely from your recollection. They were buried, or hidden at the back. They only needed to be brought back to the forefront.”

“I remember the look on Mother’s face as she was singing to us more than I remember the tone and timbre of her voice. Is that strange, Dae?”

“No, not at all. We have Mother’s likeness in portraits and miniatures, to remind us of her features. There is no comparable device to reproduce the likeness of her voice.”

“I wish there _is_ such a device,” said Rhae, fervently. 


	23. Viserys & Daenerys, protect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For valoisqueens on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Viserys Targaryen & Daenerys Targaryen, protect**

> _Safe. The word made Dany’s eyes fill up with tears. “I want to keep you safe.” Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. “No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys … I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don’t always know what I should do.” (A Dance with Dragons)_

Her brother was all she had, after Ser Willem died. Viserys still talked about how much better their lives would be once he claimed his crown, but his words began to lack conviction, and the anger that used to bubble and simmer underneath now rose to the surface more and more often.

When Dany asked, tearfully, “Who will keep us safe?” after they were thrown out of the house with the red door, after they were evicted from the only home she had ever known, Viserys shouted, “I will keep you safe! Do you think I am not strong enough to protect my own sister? I am no weakling. I am the rightful king. I am the blood of the dragon!”

She had not meant to offend him. She only thought … she only meant … well, he was a boy, not a man grown like Ser Willem, and he needed protecting as much as she did. They both needed protecting, she thought. He didn’t have to pretend to be strong, or to act like he knew what must be done all the time. She never asked that of him. He could be scared too, just like she was. They could be scared together, and then they could try to face their fears together. She wanted that. She never wanted – 

He always took it ill, though, her attempt to say these things to him. He would never admit that he was afraid, that he did not always know what he should do. 

“We are not the same, you and I,” he insisted. She was _his_ charge, and his _burden,_ he said. “I have to protect you from the Usurper and his hired knives. I promised Mother. I promised her most solemnly. She couldn’t hear me, but it didn’t matter, because I promised her. I have to claim my birthright, to keep my promise. I have to claim my crown, to keep you safe from the Usurper.”

 _He never promised Mother to protect me from himself,_ thought Dany. He should have. If he had, then perhaps he would not have treated her the way he did. He would not have left the marks and the scars he left on her flesh, on her heart, on her soul. 


	24. Arthur & Allyria, childhood memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Arthur Dayne & Allyria Dayne, childhood memory**

She was the youngest, the youngest by quite a number of years, and now she was the last. All that remained were her memories, pale imitations of the flesh and blood her brothers and sister had been. In Arthur’s case especially, those memories seemed so slight, so flimsy and inadequate.

Alfred was the heir and then the lord, so he was never far from Starfall for long, aside from the few years he had spent squiring for Lord Fowler, and his time at the Water Gardens before that. Ashara never stirred from Starfall before she was chosen to be one of Princess Elia’s companions. Arthur though … at times it had seemed to the girl Allyria had been that her second brother was more a myth than a man, like a figure from the sweet songs of chivalry her other brother was fond of. 

One of the faded tapestries adorning the walls in the great hall of Starfall portrayed an unnamed Dayne wielding Dawn. No one really knew which Sword of the Morning he was. His identity was lost in the mist of time.When Allyria was a little girl, she was convinced that the knight depicted in that tapestry was her brother Arthur. Each time he returned to Starfall, she would gaze at his face and be struck anew at how different it was from how she thought it should be.

His true face she only saw once or twice a year. The knight in the tapestry though … he was always there to be stared at, to be confided with, to be asked questions after questions regarding his seemingly never-ending journey away from home. 

She could recall ever making him laugh only once. He was cleaning his sword, engrossed in the task while she was busy committing his true face to memory. When he asked, “Do you know the tale of how Dawn was forged, little sister?” she was so startled that she almost fell from her chair.

“It was _supposedly_ forged from the heart of a fallen star,” she replied. 

Her brother smiled. “Supposedly?”

“Stars don’t have hearts. They’re _stars_ , not sheep.”

That was when her brother laughed. Allyria did her best to commit the sound to memory. The knight in the tapestry could never laugh. He had a sort of half-smile, if you looked at him from a certain angle, but his smile was not as sweet as her brother’s.

After his laughter subsided, Arthur said, “Most people would have said that stars are not like us, that stars don’t have hearts like men and women do.”

“We had sheep’s heart for supper when you were gone,” Allyria confided. “If you were not gone so much, you could have eaten it too.” 

“Was it tasty?”

“The tastiest,” she declared, though in truth, she had eaten only a very small bite.

“When I return from the tourney, perhaps we could have sheep’s heart for supper.”

“To celebrate your victory, oh yes,” said Allyria, her eyes gleaming.


	25. Doran & Elia, empathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For valoisqueens on Tumblr. Thank you for your prompt <3

**For the prompt: Doran Martell & Elia Martell, empathy**

Doran did not speak, until Elia had spoken first. His silence was not always bewildering, nor was it always vexing. Not to her, at least. Often she welcomed it, welcomed his comforting silence and valued his restraint and his discretion. 

“Oberyn wants to challenge Rhaegar to single combat.”

Doran received the news calmly, more calmly than Elia had expected. “You have dissuaded him, I trust.”

It was a statement, not a question. A testament to his faith in her.

Elia laughed a mirthless laugh. “Oh, yes, I have dissuaded him, to be sure. I was merciless with our brother. Do not make this about you, as you are so often wont to do, I reproached him. My humiliation should not serve the cause of the greater glory of Oberyn Nymeros Martell, I warned him.”

Her brother had looked so wounded, hearing those words from her. For once, he had nothing to say. He made neither sharp nor witty rejoinders. She had not wanted to wound him, but it had to be done, for his own sake, if nothing else. Only with those words could she have dissuaded him, completely and thoroughly.

Doran said, “That must have been hard for you. I know how close you and Oberyn have always been. I know how much you care for one another.”

Elia’s eyes narrowed. “Are you going to tell me that you understand how I feel? That you know what it is like for me?”

Doran had the grace to blush. “I would never presume, sister.” He winced, before adding, “I should not have presumed, Elia.” He hesitated, for a moment, then a fraction of another, before reaching out for her hand. His touch was the lightest of touch. She held on to his hand, when he was about to let go. 

No, her older brother could not truly understand what it had been like for Elia, to be publicly humiliated by her husband, in front of so many eyes, in front of the good-father who had insulted her beloved daughter for her Dornish blood. Try as he might, he could never place himself in her position, not even at the most soaring height of his imagination. 

And yet, Elia would wager that Doran understood well enough why she had reacted (and _acted_ , in more than one sense of the word) the way she had, in that bitter moment of humiliation. Oberyn did not understand. He did not understand her apparent composure, an act of will that required every ounce of self-control she possessed. 

“Where is your wrath, Elia? Rhaegar should be humiliated, as _you_ were humiliated. You are a princess of Dorne. You should be raging!”

“I _am_ raging!” she had raged at her brother, in the privacy of his tent, as she had not publicly and openly raged at her husband. Her rage burned as bright as Nymeria’s star, befitting a descendant of the sun.

And yet, and yet, and yet …

“Words are like arrows, my sweetlings. Once loosed, you cannot call them back,” said their lady mother, who herself had waged a lifelong battle against her more natural disposition, which argued against silence.

Silence was a princess’s friend, especially a Dornish princess waging a battle for survival amongst the dragons. Silence was a princess’s weapon, as sharp as any sword, if honed and polished properly, and wielded judiciously. 


	26. Tywin & Genna, disappointment

**Tywin Lannister & Genna Lannister, disappointment**

> _“I was my father’s precious princess … and Tywin’s too, until I disappointed him. My brother never learned to like the taste of disappointment.” (A Feast for Crows)_

“You disappoint me, Genna. I thought better of you. I believed you to be a worthy lioness.”

“You value my husband even less than I do. You think him beneath your contempt. My poor Emm shakes with fear every time he catches your eyes. Why do you care about his shame? Who is Emmon Frey to you, after all?”

“It is not _his_ shame that concerns me. I care nothing for your husband’s shame. But you bring shame to our House. You bring shame to the Lannister name, with your brazen and shameless conduct. You flirt with these men, openly and blatantly, under the roofs of Casterly Rock. You show your favors to these men, in our halls, in _my_ halls.”

“I flirt with them, to be sure. But I have not made any of them my … well, what is the word for a male mistress? Matress? Mamis?”

“Do not mistake me for our brother Gerion. I have no taste for senseless jests and japeries.” 

“Do not mistake me for our father. I have no taste for weakness of the flesh. _I_ will be doing the leading and the seducing. I will _not_ be led and seduced to my detriment.” 

“So you think.”

“So I _know_.” 


	27. Robert & Stannis, teamwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Robert Baratheon & Stannis Baratheon, teamwork**

> _But the battle came to an end when Prince Baelor Breakspear appeared with a host of stormlords and Dornishmen, falling on the rebel rear, while the young Prince Maekar rallied what remained of Lord Arryn’s van and made an implacable anvil against which the rebels were hammered and destroyed. (The World of Ice and Fire)_

“The hammer and the anvil,” said Maester Cressen, pointedly, to the bickering Baratheon brothers, “is a tale of teamwork between two brothers. Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar defeated the Blackfyre rebels by working together, each playing his own role, each vital to the final victory.” 

Stannis scoffed. “I trust you are not comparing Robert with Prince Baelor, Maester.”

Robert laughed. “Scoff all you want, Stannis. The comparison is most apt. Prince Baelor was the finest knight of his time, and I intend to be the finest knight of my time. Prince Maekar was said to be humorless, and you –”

“King Maekar was our father’s great-grandsire.”

The mention of their recently deceased father silenced Robert. Maester Cressen took the opportunity to interject, “Your lord father would have wished his sons to work together, for the good of the stormlands. He often wished for brothers himself, being an only child. It would grieve Lord Steffon deeply, to see his sons constantly at odds with one another.” 

Robert said, “My father would have wished my younger brothers to be loyal and dutiful to the new Lord of Storm’s End.”

Stannis retorted, “My father would have wished the new Lord of Storm’s End to spend more time in the stormlands than the Vale.” 

Four years later, Robert would place his hand on Stannis’ shoulder, a gesture he normally reserved for his foster brother Ned Stark. He would ask, rather than demand (which was his custom when dealing with Stannis in the past), “Will you be my anvil, brother? Will you hold Storm’s End for me, while I pound Aerys and Rhaegar into submission with my warhammer?”

It was hard choosing, hard choosing between his blood and his liege, between his brother and his king, Stannis would tell himself later, would even manage to convince himself in the future. At that moment, however, it did not seem hard at all. The path seemed clear to him, the clearest it had been since the day Windproud sank. He would hold Storm’s End come hell or high water. He would be the implacable anvil against which the enemy would expend its strength in vain. 


	28. Robb & Jon, teasing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Robb Stark & Jon Snow, teasing**

> _His father had always said that in battle a captain’s lungs were as important as his sword arm. “It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard,” Lord Eddard told his sons, so Robb and [Jon] used to climb the towers of Winterfell to shout at each other across the yard. (A Storm of Swords)_

Robb bellowed, “Snow!

Jon hollered, “Stark!

“I can’t hear you, Snow. Louder, captain, louder!” 

“STAAAAAAAARK!”

His voice broke too high, the second time he called out for Robb. Jon winced, embarrassed. He had not sounded like a leader of men that time. He wondered what Robb would say to that. Perhaps Robb would not say anything at all, to protect his brother’s pride. That would make it worse, somehow, Jon felt, although he could not really say why.

They climbed down the towers, reuniting in the practice yard, where each morning Ser Rodrik would drill them on their skills at arms. Jon stole a sidelong glance at Robb, who asked, somewhat too nonchalantly, “Was that you shouting Stark the second time?”

Jon gulped. “Why?” he asked, trying his best to sound unconcerned. 

“Well, it sounded … different,” replied Robb. 

“Different how?”

Robb shrugged. “I don’t know. Just … different.” He added, after a pause, “It sounded like the voice of a woman, calling me Stark.”

“A woman? Well, that’s not me, then. I’m not a woman, am I? Are you sure you heard it?”

“You mean you _didn’t_ hear it?” 

Jon stayed mum. 

“I didn’t imagine it,” Robb insisted. 

“Maybe it was a ghost.” 

“Ghosts only exist in Old Nan’s stories.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Robb chuckled, nervously. “Leave off, Snow. I’m not Sansa, Arya and baby Bran in the crypt, frightened by the sight of you covered with flour.”

“The dead walk the towers too, day and night,” whispered Jon, the same way Robb had whispered to their younger siblings in the crypt, “This is where the dead walk, day and night.”

Robb shivered. His eyes darted past one tower, then another. He looked uncertain, suddenly full of doubt. The sun had shone in his hair as he and Jon were climbing up the towers, but now he looked downcast, as if trailed by invisible shadows. 

Jon was stricken with guilt. “It was me,” he admitted. “I shouted Stark the second time. There was no ghost. Only me.”

Robb’s eyes widened. “Did you do the voice on purpose? To tease me?”

“Yes. No. I … I was too embarrassed to admit it was my voice.”

Robb grinned, his face transformed into the way it usually seemed to Jon’s eyes, sunny and shadow-less, a picture in contrast to Jon’s own face. “It didn’t really sound like a woman’s voice,” Robb said. “I knew it was your voice all along.”

“Then why did you pretend?”

“To tease _you_! To see how long you could keep up the charade.”

Jon punched his brother’s arm, playfully. “Or maybe you were really scared, and you’re only pretending to have known all along.”

“I’ll race you to the Great Hall,” Robb shouted, his feet already on the move, neatly evading Jon’s last remark. 


	29. Hoster & Brynden, teamwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Hoster Tully & Brynden Tully, teamwork**

> _“It is no disgrace to miss your shot,” her uncle told her quietly. “Edmure should hear that. The day my own lord father went downriver, Hoster missed as well.” (A Storm of Swords)_

The Tully brothers stood on the battlements, as seven of their lord father’s bannermen pushed his funeral boat downriver. Hoster’s eyes lingered on his daughter. Little Cat, sleeping peacefully in her mother’s arms, too young to know the grandsire she had just lost. Minisa’s gaze seemed to calm her husband. His restless fingers that had been fiddling with the bowstring went still, quite still. 

Brynden watched and waited, for the boat to pass the Water Gate. He prompted his brother with an emphatic nod. Hoster nocked an arrow to his bowstring. Brynden held a torch to the arrow’s oil-soaked point, setting it on fire. The flaming arrow was let loosed by the new Lord Tully of Riverrun. 

It had been done seamlessly, and more to the point, wordlessly. They were always a better team when few words were exchanged between them, their lord father had said more than once. Without words, there could be no protracted quarrels, no drawn-out arguments, no blames and recriminations. Without words, their brotherly instinct would rise to the fore.

And yet, this time –

 _Too far,_ Brynden thought. The arrow would miss their father’s funeral boat by half a dozen yards at least, he expected.

Hoster grunted, as his arrow indeed missed its mark. The sight of his sleeping child forestalled any cursing or swearing on his part. “I missed it,” he said, stating the obvious, in a very low voice. 

“Your father would not blame you for it,” Minisa said, gently. 

Hoster would blame himself, it was clear.

Brynden debated not saying anything at all. But the boat was drifting away, while his brother made no move to release a second arrow. “It is no disgrace to miss your shot,” he said, gruffly.

His brother threw him a surprised glance.

“As long as you get it right at some point,” Brynden added. He placed a hand on his brother’s arm. “Now,” he exhorted.

Hoster’s second shot found its mark just in time. 


	30. Catelyn & Edmure, mourning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Catelyn Tully & Edmure Tully, mourning**

> _“Did he speak of me at the end? Tell me true, Cat. Did he ask for me?” (A Storm of Swords)_

“He whispered your name,” his sister had replied, and Edmure had been grateful for the lie, a lie kindly told for his sake. In the immediate aftermath of his father’s death, he wanted – no, _needed_ – to believe that Lord Hoster had called out for him at the end. Cat had given him that lie – no, that _gift_ , that precious gift – knowing that he needed it, needed it more than the truth at the time. 

Cat would have been screaming her son’s name at the end. _Robb’s_ name. She had watched him die, the young man who had been the babe she proudly cradled in her arms at Riverrun as she asked her skeptical brother, “Would you like to hold your nephew?” Her face had opened up like a flower in bloom when Edmure’s “He’s so ugly!” pronouncement about the babe was followed by two sets of grins, on the uncle’s face and the nephew’s face both. 

_Did you look for me at the end? Tell me true, Cat. Did you blame me for not saving your boy?_

Did he really wish for the truth? Could he live with the truth? There was no Cat to tell him a kindly lie when he needed it, no Cat to tell him the hard truth even when he resented it, no Cat … no Cat … no Cat … not anymore, not ever. 

He could not mourn his sister, he despaired. He did not deserve to mourn her, he thought. 


	31. Dacey & Alysane, promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the Anon on Tumblr who sent me this prompt <3

**For the prompt: Dacey Mormont & Alysane Mormont, promise**

> _“There’s a carving on our gate,” said Dacey. “A woman in a bearskin, with a child in one arm suckling at her breast. In the other hand she holds a battleaxe. She’s no proper lady, that one, but I always loved her.” (A Storm of Swords)_

It was an axe that killed Dacey. An axe wielded by a Frey. How could that be? At a _wedding_ , no less. It was no battle. Had it been a true battle, Dacey would not have been slain by a Frey. Not like that. 

Had she danced with that Frey, before the wedding turned red? Dacey was a wonderful dancer. It was a talent Alysane herself never mastered. Never wanted to master, for that matter. But Dacey thought of her steps on the dance floor as an extension of her steps on the training yard. She never saw those two realms as separate and incompatible. 

Alysane’s last sight of her sister was of Dacey kissing the carving of the She-Bear on their gate. For luck, Dacey had said. She kissed the child too. The axe, she kissed twice. 

“Will you return with a battleaxe in your hand? Or a babe suckling at your breast?” Alysane asked. Her voice was gruff. Strangers would think that she was annoyed, or even angry.

Her sister knew better though. Dacey laughed, knowing the remark to be a teasing jape. “A babe suckling at my breast? No, not likely. Though perhaps _your_ brood will have increased from two to three, when I return.”

 _When I return_ , Dacey had said. Had promised, without explicitly promising. 

“Will you return as the Lady of Winterfell?”

Dacey grinned. “The Young Wolf is much too young for me. Our Jory is closer in age to him.”

Their sister Jorelle was named in honor of a Mormont woman who became the Lady of Winterfell hundreds of years ago. 

“Perhaps the Young Wolf will be scared off by the story of the Mormont Lady Stark who slew a pack of wolves when she was twelve and wore their skins as her cloak. Is he as brave as Alaric Stark? Be sure to ask him that.”

“I will,” said Dacey. “I promise.”


End file.
